The growth of mobile is also extending "digital prime time" and
allowing everyone to stay connected during their commutes,
weekends, workouts, and bedtimes. That's very helpful for
content, communications, and commerce companies that orient
themselves to take advantage of mobile. And it's also obviously
helpful for mobile software and gadget makers.

But the explosion of mobile growth has given rise to some myths.
These have already claimed the lives of some startups and
incinerated hundreds of millions of dollars of poorly invested
capital.

What are these myths?

Here are the two big ones:

The future will be mobile ONLY. No one will
have any need for laptops or desktops anymore this story goes.
We'll all just use tablets and smartphones. And "fixed
Internet" content, communications, and commerce companies will
be replaced by "mobile" versions.

All companies should design for mobile FIRST, treating
the desktop Internet as, at best, an
afterthought. Those archaic keyboard-operated
"big screens," this theory goes, will be replaced by small
touch screens. And all advertisers, content, communications,
and commerce companies need to radically change their focus to
reflect this.

Anyone who believes either of these stories should look at the
picture below.

This picture is a picture of the Business Insider newsroom, with the BI
tech team in the foreground.

The BI news team includes some of the most aggressive "early
adopters" of new technology on the planet. These folks are
completely digital. Anytime a cool new gadget or tool comes out,
they buy it immediately and incorporate it into their lives. They
own smartphones and tablets. They're in the 20s and early
30s--card-carrying members of the "digital generation." In short,
they're as digitally connected as anyone gets.

Henry
Blodget

So, how much "mobile" do you see in that photo?

Not a whole lot (if any).

Why not?

Because, like many "knowledge workers," the members of the BI
editorial team spend 8-12 hours a day in an office.

And they'll be damned if they're going to spend all that time
squinting at tiny mobile screens.

The US
smartphone market is already more than 55% penetrated. Most
of the "knowledge workers" in the US--the folks who create and
consume news and information, communicate digitally, and shop
digitally (and make most of the country's income) already have
smartphones. And within another year or two, they will also have
tablets.

But these tablets and smartphones will not suddenly cause all
knowledge workers to jettison bigger screens and "go mobile."
They'll just enable these consumers and professionals to stay
actively connected for a full 18 hours a day, instead of 8-12.

Yes, in the process, these mobile devices may cannibalize
some desktop-based big screen Internet usage, but, for
most companies, not a whole lot. Mostly, they'll just increase
overall usage. And they will enable consumers to interact with
their favorite digital brands and services for all of their
waking hours instead of just their hours at work.

These "mobile" users, moreover, won't want to interact with their
favorite brands and services ONLY on mobile, or even necessarily
MOSTLY on mobile (It depends on the service: Mobile music, for
example, is huge, as are some mobile games). They'll want to
interact with them everywhere.

So the idea that most companies should reorient their entire
businesses around "Mobile only" or "mobile first" seems
misguided, at best.

Mobile is a huge global growth story, and companies should
obviously think about how to take advantage of that.

But, for most companies, "mobile only" and "mobile first" should
be seen for what they are: Myths.